Month: May 2011

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — The Sharks should be skating right about now and I’m still in the airport here, as planned. What wasn’t planned, however, is Mark Emmons being summoned for jury duty. Don’t worry, we’ll be well-covered by others in the print edition, but it might be awhile before something fresh shows up here.

So I’m jumping in with something.

Canucks coach Alain Vigneault expected a suspension for Ben Eager, but when that didn’t happen, here’s his exchange with the media here this morning:

Q. Last night you said the league would do the right thing with respect to Eager on Daniel. They didn’t suspend him. Wondering your reaction to that.

“Well, you know, there’s really nothing we can do about that. In our mind anyway, you know, he went out and tried to hurt our player, the NHL MVP, potential MVP. That’s how their coach wants him to play. He ran our goalie. I guess that’s how they want him to play.

“I mean, there’s really nothing we can do about it. We just got to hope that the people do the right things.”

Q. In some way, knowing that he can’t play like that every game, McLellan said he would put him back in the lineup pending a non suspension. If he’s running around again being undisciplined, does that help you guys because you could benefit from power plays?

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — So much ground to cover, but it’s late so we’re just going to focus on Ben Eager for now, and what Todd McLellan had to say after that 7-3 loss to the Canucks in Game 2.

Eager was pretty unrepentant in the locker room. That isn’t really out of character. Among other things, he called Kevin Bieksa a phony for getting into that fight with Patrick Marleau. (Mark Purdy gets into a lot of that — and what Bieksa has to say — in his column that should be linked at right.)

But I’ll dwell here on what Todd McLellan had to say about his fourth-line left wing.

“Ben Eager is one of our faster forwards, one of our more physical forwards. I think he has the ability to win battles and create scrums. I do believe the other team knows when he’s on the ice. The fact that Ben played a lot more minutes tonight was rewarding for us.

“Now the negative. He can’t march to the penalty box on an ongoing basis. The tradeoff obviously didn’t work in our favor tonight.”

So, altogether, not what you wanted?

“I’d like him to play that game, without going to the penalty box. Simple as that.”

Jason Demers did not skate and, though Todd McLellan said decisions would be made later in the day, it’s a very safe bet that No. 60 won’t be in the lineup.

Kent Huskins remains the likely replacement as he was off the ice while Justin Braun and a handful of the other “black aces” (hockey’s term for players who practice with teams in the playoffs, but rarely get into games) were still on the ice.

So how big a challenge was it, getting back into action during the Western Conference finals after missing games for three months?

“It helps having been there before and knowing what to expect and the kind of intensity you have to gear yourself up for and bring to the table,” said Huskins, who was on Anaheim’s Stanley Cup winning team in 2007.

“But as far as conditioning, I’ve done a lot of work with the coaches to get myself as physically ready as I could for this situation,” he added. “Then it’s just little things like reading the play at that speed. It just takes a couple shifts to get back into things.”

Other than, it was pretty much more of the same today as the Sharks prepare for tonight’s Game 2.

There was some continued joking around about Joe Thornton’s attempt to fight Ryan Kesler at the opening faceoff of Game 1. Devin Setoguchi was asked if he would try to fight Kesler at that point tonight. Logan Couture was asked if he’d drop the gloves with Henrik Sedin at some point. Both said that was pretty unlikely.Continue Reading →

Ryan Kesler shared with the world that Joe Thornton challenged him to fight when the two were tossed from the opening faceoff.

And Thornton, said, yep, he did just that.

My colleague Mark Purdy will be column-izing on that later, but here’s how the story developed. Kesler was holding court with a half-dozen or so reporters. We asked him about playing against Thornton in general, then about the display at the start of the game, when the two of them jousted their way out of the opening faceoff.

“I don’t know what he was trying to do there, but I’m not intimidated by him and I’m not going to be,” Kesler said. “He’s a good player. No one scares me on the ice. I played against Shea Weber and that beard last round. Nothing’s going to scare me on the ice. He can play me any way he wants to, but I’m going to play the same game on the ice.”

Then he was asked what Thornton said to him just as the puck was dropping between the sticks of two other players.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — With two days between games at the Western Conference finals, you’ve got a situation where there are dozens of reporters in pursuit of a smorgasbord of stories.

Yes, there is that Game 2 advance, but maybe that can wait another 24 hours. So you’re sharing interview time with others going off in every direction imaginable. It can be frustrating because for that moment you don’t really want to hear another response to yet another question about Logan Couture, but you listen anyway. And a lot of the time, you come away with good material.

Here are snippets of what the recorder picked up today. And to keep the smorgasbord imagery going, we’ll start with Daniel Sedin talking about Douglas Murray.

*****Murray is six months older than the Sedin twins, Daniel and Henrik, and he has been competing against them since they were about 12.

So what does Daniel Sedin remember about Murray at that age?

“Big,” the Canucks left wing said. “He was a man when he was 12. We played together on the national team and against him in a few tournaments. He’s always been good.”

Murray’s size wasn’t the only thing that Daniel Sedin remembered about the defenseman as a teammate in international competition.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Jason Demers says he hopes to be playing in Game 2, though the decision isn’t his to make.

And both teams, it turns out, weren’t all that happy with some of the officiating in the Vancouver Canucks 3-2 victory over the Sharks in Game 1.

That’s probably the closest thing to news coming out of today’s media swarms at Rogers Arena, so let’s deal with that right away before getting onto other matters later.

“When the coaches tell me to play, I’ll be ready to play and I’m ready to go,” Demers said, adding for emphasis: “Whenever they need me, I’ll be ready.”

So you’re ready to go and just waiting for the coach’s word?

“Yep.”

And hopeful of playing in Game 2?

“Yep.”

Demers confirmed that he was dealing with “bumps and bruises,” but played down the extent of whatever injury did keep him out of Game 1, saying everyone in the locker room is dealing with similar matters.

VANCOUVER — This will be a hit and run, trying to get out of Rogers Arena before they turn the lights out.

The gist of the print edition story is that while the Sharks did indeed lose a third-period lead in losing 3-2 to the Vancouver Canucks, it wasn’t as if they clearly deserved that lead in the first place based on overall play.

Here, I’m just going to take advantage of the fact the NHL does a good deal of transcribing itself of the podium interviews and do a quick cut and paste excerpt of what Todd McLellan had to say. Then back again for more tomorrow.

VANCOUVER — That 5 p.m. start isn’t awkward only for the players. Not complaining because earlier is always better in my line of work, but the routine does get disrupted.

Still, will squeeze in an extra posting at this point, just to provide a little flavor of what the atmosphere is like up here.

And since I’m a newspaper dinosaur, let’s start with today’s Vancouver Province. The tabloid’s front page? A shot of Ryan Kesler, arms spread, mouth wide open with the screaming headline: NO WAY, JOSE!

Again, that’s the front page, not the sports section. The deck head? Canucks Nation Predicts Victory, Fans Are Confident Vancouver Has What It Takes To Beat The San Jose Sharks.

And it teases to an inside “news” story that basically talks to fans, who say, yes, they think the Canucks will win. Only they do take things a step further and consult with a Chinese-trained fortuneteller, Sherman Tai, who was asked to analyze the starting goalies and a handful of skaters on each team using the “ba zi” method that factors in birth dates, birth places and photos.